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THE PATENT ON THE HYDROCYANIC ACID GAS PROCESS DECLARED 



INVALID. 



By D. W. COQUILLETT. 



On the 9tli of April of the present year Jnclge E. M. Ross, of the 

 Federal court for sonthern California, rendered a decision of consider- 

 able importance to the horticulturists of that State. Readers of Insect 

 Life have in a previous issue been made aware of the fact that a few 

 years ago three enterprising fruit-growers of southern California applied 

 for and actually succeeded in obtaining a iiatent on the process of 

 treating trees with hydrocyanic acid gas for the destruction of certain 

 kinds of injurious insects — a process originating with and worked out 

 by the writer. Shortly after obtaining their patent agents were sent 

 out to different fruit-growers, ottering them the right to use this process 

 by paying the patentees a certain sum for each acre of trees upon which 

 the process was to be used. However, with three or four exceptions, 

 the growers refused to purchase the patent right, although the majority 

 of them continued to use the process as in the past. After a number 

 of them had thus been appealed to, they decided to form an organiza- 

 tion for the express purpose of resisting the claims of the patentees. 

 Accordingly, a large organization was soon efi'ected, and the patentees 

 found themselves confronted by a majority of the fruit-growers of 

 southern California. 



Finding their eftbrts in this direction futile, the patentees next sought 

 to persuade the boards of supervisors of the different counties to pur- 

 chase the patent right for their respective counties, but here again 

 their attempts iDroved unsuccessful; in every case the matter was 

 referred to the district attorney, and the latter decided either that the 

 patentees had no moral nor legal right to the patent, or else that the 

 supervisors were not authorized to expend any money for the purpose 

 of purchasing a patent right. 



Finally, the patentees decided to test the validity of their patent in 

 the courts, and in che autumn of 1893 caused the arrest of one of the 

 fruit-growers, charging him with the unlawful use of their patent, and 

 seeking to obtain from him not only the first cost of the patent right 

 but also the value of the profits that had accrued to him as a result of 

 his having used the process covered by their iiatent. The organization 

 of fruit-growers alluded to above then employed the proper counsel to 

 represent them before the court, and in due time the trial took place, 

 resulting in the rendering of the decision referred to in the opening para- 

 grai)li of this article, to the effect that the patent is not a valid one. 



In their specifications fbrthis patent the applicants acknowledge that 

 they were not the first to use this process, but based their claim upon 

 the use of it " in the absence, substantially, of the actinic rays of light." 

 In rendering his decision Judge Ross concludes as follows: 



